


A Sociable Intervention

by Polly_Phemus (orphan_account)



Series: Dom down the Hall Prompts, Timestamps &tc [10]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Barbecue, Friendship, Kissing, M/M, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-11-28 23:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11428287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Polly_Phemus
Summary: Jensen and Jared have been spending every spare moment alone together; Misha wants to remind them that they still have other friends.  Said friends, always ready for a party, are more than on board with his plan.Although I only tagged for Jared/Jensen, another RPF pairing is mentioned in passing, a couple of original characters are courting and toward the end of the story, Jensen discusses the potential for another RPF pairing.





	A Sociable Intervention

**Author's Note:**

> Emily Perkins, in this AU, is, in some important ways, more like her character, Becky Rosen, than an actor who just plays Becky Rosen on TV.

"Got plans for Friday night?" Jared asked Jensen on a Tuesday evening. They were in Jared's condo, unwinding with a couple of beers and some canapes, enjoying the view of Atlanta's skyline from the comfort of Jared's favorite arm chairs.

"Of course I do; I plan to spend Friday night with you," Jensen said. 

"Anything more specific than that?"

"Hmm. I hadn't given it that much thought. Perhaps we could pull out Osric's lucky sheet," Jensen suggested, referring to a high-quality rubber sheet he and Jared had once contemplated using it as a sexy slip-n-slide before going in a more flannel, less slippery direction.

"Stop calling it that! It's your sheet, which you picked out and bought with your money!" Jared protested. Osric had been really nice and helpful to Jared when Jensen had given him his corporal punishment and Jared did not like to think about him in sexual contexts. Mostly because Osric had the kind of personality Jared liked in a dom and was pretty cute and if Jared didn't already have Jensen.... Well, he didn't want to think about anybody but Jensen in sexual terms.

"In any case, it's gone tragically underused and since, as you pointed out, I paid good money for it, is it wrong to think that Friday night might well be spent exploring its possibilities?" Jensen asked reasonably.

"I guess not," Jared admitted. "But as much fun as sexy slip-n-slide sounds, we may have to save it for some other night. There's going to be a barbecue at Atlanta Pines and I have to supervise."

"Oh," Jensen said. "So my only Friday plan, which was to somehow spend it with you, has now been reduced to no Friday plan. I can't even stay late at work; we've all been warned that they plan to fumigate at 6:00 p.m. sharp and we are forbidden to enter our offices for twelve hours. Do you still have your boss's _Wonder Sub_ DVDs? Or I suppose I could continue my epic struggle to finish re-reading _The Dark Tower_ before the movie comes out."

"Oh, please, we haven't even gotten to _War for the Planet of the Apes_ yet, let alone _Wonder Sub_. In two years, we'll be all, 'Weren't there a bunch of movies we were gonna see in 2017?' because we've barely even left the building," Jared pointed out. "But here's the part where your plans are being refined, not altered," Jared continued triumphantly. "Because not only would I have invited you regardless, no less than ten different people at Atlanta Pines, residents and staff alike, have made inquiries about the possibility of your presence there. In ways that were much more charming than subtle."

"Wow. So if I go I'll get to meet all your colleagues and residents?"

"Well, most of them. Thirty of the residents are off on a cruise to the northernmost reaches of Norway and Russia and another twenty or so are off visiting relatives or whatever. And staff attendance isn't mandatory for this one, so that cuts it down. I've been told to plan for about two hundred diners."

"Man, you'll be running your ass off," Jensen said.

"Not really; we use a catering service for barbecues. Plus, the residents aren't all going to show up at once."

"You do these often?"

"We try to get in at least one a month. I ducked out of Fourth of July."

"I plowed your ass but good on the Fourth," Jensen said with a fond smile.

"God bless America," Jared said, raising his beer glass. They toasted freedom, independence and anal sex. Then, not wanting to slight their other favorites, they toasted kissing, spanking and expanded voting rights.

"Anyway, so you are not going so much as to barbecue for the masses as to watch others barbecue for the masses?" Jensen asked.

"Pretty much. And help get the side dishes out. You want in?"

"Do I get to meet Harry Alexander? And Ms. Wilson? And Boss Lady Griffin?" Jensen wanted to know.

"I think so. I know Misha will be there, too."

"Hell, yes, I'm in," Jensen said decisively.

On Friday, Jared was indeed running his ass off. While the catering service had the actual grilling well under control, the kitchen staff was working flat-out on barbecue-appropriate sides that also met a variety of dietary requirements.

"Over twenty kinds of potato salad," Emily Perkins, the day-shift kitchen supervisor, said with both pride and exhaustion. "It's a new record!"

Jared high-fived her. She was sweet, an excellent kitchen pit boss, and made no secret that if she had but one magical wish granted to her it would be that Jared would wake up one morning as a dom so that they could fall in love. When he'd asked why she didn't want to wake up as a dom herself so that the same result would ensue, she conceded the inherent, and rather unfair, impracticality of her plan. And then asked him if he had any dominant siblings.

"We gonna see your dom there?" When Emily had first heard about Jensen, she'd shown what Jared had thought to be an inordinate interest in their relationship. But after talking to other members of the Atlanta Pines community, he'd realized that everyone had what he thought to be an inordinate interest in his relationship with Jensen. She was about the twelfth person who'd asked him if Jensen was going to show.

"Yep, probably sometime before six," Jared promised.

Jensen showed up shortly after five-thirty, still wearing a suit and tie.

"Oh, my," said Harry Alexander, who was the first to see him. "Whose accountant is _that_?"

Jared happened to be standing next to him. "Lawyer, not accountant and he's mine."

"Oh, my," Harry said again. "Your gentledom caller? Jason Akbar?"

"Jensen Ackles," Jared said proudly as Jensen joined them.

"Harry Alexander," the man introduced himself, extended his hand for Jensen to shake. "It's wonderful to meet you."

"Likewise," Jensen said. "I got a taste of that batch of your Nana's chicken and dumpling soup the kitchen staff made for Jared...it was the best I've ever had."

"Had to have been," Harry said. "But you're rather formal for a barbecue."

"Just left the office. I was hoping I could use Jared's office here to change."

"You can use my room," Harry said flirtatiously.

"Are you harassing me, Harry Alexander?" Jensen asked.

"Damn straight. You got a problem with that...sir?"

"I am standing right here!" Jared exclaimed.

"Hush, you," the elderly sub told Jared. "This young dom and I have important matters to discuss."

"I think I see Mr. Gold over there, looking a little overwhelmed by all the potato salad options," Jared said. Harry's expression brightened considerably.

"Please excuse me, Mr. Ackles," Harry said. "More age-appropriate pastures await." Harry wandered off to look at Mr. Gold and potato salad.

"He sweet on Mr. Gold?" Jensen asked, amused.

"And Mr. Gold is sweet on him," Jared said. "Be careful; you might be challenged to a duel."

"I'd hate to see Mr. Gold with a sword; I've already seen what he can do with a fountain pen," Jensen said, alluding to Mr. Gold's formidable calligraphy skills.

"Let me show you to my office, you must be roasting in that gear," Jared offered. 

They stopped by Jensen's car so he could grab a backpack from the trunk. Jensen casually glanced around the parking lot to ascertain that no one was paying attention to them, and laid a quick but extremely dirty kiss on Jared, punctuated by a couple of ass smacks that stung nicely.

"This is my place of work," Jared protested feebly.

"No one is watching," Jensen asserted.

"Everyone is always watching," Jared said darkly. Jensen glanced around. At least ten pairs of eyes were upon them.

"Shit!" Jensen exclaimed. "I swear I checked and no one was looking."

"Oh, I believe you. It's just that then you were distracted and in a matter of seconds circumstances changed drastically," Jared said.

"Damnit. I'm sorry, Jared, I didn't think."

"Ah, no harm done. They'll stop talking about it by Christmas. Maybe."

As they walked to the main building, Jensen continued to fret. "Are they mean gossips? Will they give you a hard time?"

"More like good-natured ribbing, I think," Jared said, letting Jensen in. "Here you go."

Jensen looked around Jared's office, which was decorated with colorful framed nutrition charts, Jared's degree, certification, supplementary training diplomas, and posters celebrating different varieties of pears, apples, tomatoes and lettuce. 

"So this is where the magic happens."

"This is where the magic is planned," Jared said. "The magic actually happens in the kitchen."

Jared went back outside while Jensen changed. He mingled, making sure everyone was enjoying themselves. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed several cars show up all at once, all black and expensive looking. They parked like it was synchronized exercise and disgorged a whole phalanx of doms, all wearing pastel polo shirts, knee-length khaki shorts and deck shoes.

"What the...?" Jared muttered, then looked more closely. "Osric? Ms. Harris?"

He went over to greet the newcomers. "Hi, I'm Jared Padalecki," he said to the group. "I'm the nutrition director here at Atlanta Pines."

A middle aged Caucasian man with thinning dark hair stepped forward, apparently the leader of the group.

"I'm Mark Sheppard of Sheppard Associates," he said in a pleasant voice with an English accent. "And these," he waved to the group of doms around him, "are Jensen's colleagues."

The doms nodded at Jared en masse and Jared automatically extended his hand to Mr. Sheppard.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sheppard." The lawyer returned his handshake with a firm but not crushing grip. He looked at the rest of the group, picking out the only two familiar faces. "Osric! Nice to see you again," he said and Osric smiled back at him. 

"And Ms. Harris," Jared said, nodding to her. "It's good to see you under better circumstances."

"Jensen told me that you recovered well?"

"Yeah, by Monday I was already going through the Itch of Healing." Ms. Harris smiled approvingly.

"Why don't you all come up to the pits?" Jared said. "Jensen's changing; I'm surprised he didn't just come with the rest of you."

"He doesn't know we're here," Osric said. Jared had already figured that much out; if Jensen had invited...it looked like eight...colleagues, he definitely would've warned Jared. The whole thing was mystifying.

Jared focused on leading the group to the picnic ground and barbecue pits, then looked for his boss, Ms. Griffin, who didn't seem to be around. But the assistant director, Ms. Cortese, was, so Jared approached her instead.

"Hi," he said, trying not to loom even though he was pretty sure Ms. Cortese was very hard to intimidate. She was a foot shorter than Jared, about a year older, and very intense about her job. Jared respected her and was glad he had Jensen, otherwise Atlanta Pines would've become a more apt name for their workplace than he would've been comfortable with.

Currently, Ms. Cortese was carefully cutting up some chicken, probably to take to a resident who didn't feel up to coming out. Jared had already stopped by to visit several of them, taking potato salad sampler plates with him.

"Ms. Cortese, I just discovered a group of uninvited guests from Sheppard Associates. What should I do?"

"The lawyers? They're not crashing," Ms. Cortese said calmly, cleaning her fingers with a towel and some hand sanitizer. "Ms. Griffin invited them."

"Oh," Jared said, even more puzzled. "I didn't realize. I didn't get a guest list, just a number."

"Something about wills," Ms. Cortese said. "I guess some residents had questions and Ms. Griffin said she was impressed by how they handled your...ah...that is, some recent legal work of theirs she'd seen, so...." She shrugged. "I didn't catch everything that was going on with that. Excuse me, please, I need to get this chicken to Ms. Iskandar while it's still hot." Ms. Cortese strode purposefully toward a residential wing. 

"I see," said Jared to her absence, but he didn't. He found it very hard to believe that, however new she might be to Atlanta Pines, Ms. Cortese was anything but very much on top of everything that was happening. And if they were only at Atlanta Pines to talk about legal matters, why the hell would they have brought their favorite medic?

"What the actual fuck is going on here, Jared?" Jensen demanded. Jared jumped a little; he hadn't seen Jensen come back out. "Why are all my work friends here?"

"I have no idea," Jared said. He wasn't too distracted by the odd direction the barbecue was taking to be amused that Jensen was dressed exactly like everyone else from his firm. His polo shirt was light pink and his shorts were a jaunty check in linen, but the basic concept was the same, right down to the deck shoes.

"Do you guys all go shopping together?"

"We have a non-binding dress code that covers all possible situations; it just makes things easier, especially on the new hires. If I'd known it was a my-work event, I would've worn khaki." Jensen frowned at his shorts like they were the devil's gateway to unprofessionalism. 

"This is no work event," Jared said. "This is an ambush, like some kind of...."

"Intervention time!" Misha yelled to the crowd. Everyone cheered. Jared had never been to an intervention, but he was pretty sure that no one cheered at them. Plus, given the crowd that had assembled, he guessed that either he or Jensen was the subject of the intervention. He looked worriedly at Jensen, who was looking equally worriedly had him.

"As you know," Misha announced, "our beloved Jared Padalecki, who keeps us healthy...and regular...." The crowd cheered, either for Jared or regularity, Jared wasn't sure which. "With his excellent meal planning," Misha continued, prompting another cheer, "has been rather scarce of late." The crowd booed.

"Now, now, let us not be sorrowful, my friends," Misha said. "For he has the best reason of all: true love!" Cheers.

"And," Osric stepped up next to Misha, "Mr. Ackles, Jared's sealed paramour," loud cheers erupted and Jensen nodded as if such accolades were due and customary, grabbing Jared's hand and holding it aloft as if in mutual victory, then lowering their still-joined hands.

"Mr. Jensen Ackles," Osric continued after the round of cheers had died out, "has similarly been preoccupied. So Misha Collins," cheers again, "and I have decided to stage an intervention. Which, I might add, would not have been possible without the cooperation of your helpful director, Ms. Griffin," Osric nodded at the woman herself, who'd appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and nodded graciously when the crowd cheered her, too. "And her new assistant, Ms. Cortese, who...." Osric looked around. "Who was here a minute ago."

"In absentia!" Mr.Gold shouted and everyone cheered that.

"Right," Osric agreed. "Anyway, everyone has come together neither to denigrate true love nor to obstruct its course, but rather to encourage and support our friends in the mutual journey." Yet more cheering.

"We've all seen it," Misha took over. "In the first flush of love, couples disappear...somewhere." Ribald catcalls. "Sometimes never to be seen again." Several harumphs.

Misha pointed at Emily. "I didn't get a harumph out of you."

"No, you didn't," Emily said robustly, "and you won't! And y'all can watch my ass all you want." Cheers for Emily's feistiness. Jared had a feeling someone had primed the crowd with a _Blazing Saddles_ screening.

"However, we want Jared and Jensen to know that we won't forget them, we won't let them forget us, and we'll be here and ready to party whenever they are!"

Misha's apparent conclusion drew the loudest cheers yet. He bowed, Osric bowed, and "Celebration" blared out over the speakers as the crowd milled toward Jared and Jensen.

The rest of the barbecue passed quickly, Jared and Jensen largely mingling and greeting friends and colleagues to reassure them that they weren't spiraling into an unhealthily reclusive life of sex and social avoidance. There was dancing, Jensen paired with Harry Alexander while Mr. Gold swooped in to rock out with Jared while "With Love from Me to You" played. It didn't take much effort for them to swap partners.

As it got darker and paper lanterns and fairy lights began glowing, Jared and Jensen finally met by the firepit for a quiet moment. 

"Hope this isn't too weird or intrusive for you. This is the kind of thing Misha does all the time," Jared said. "Your crowd?"

Jensen shrugged. "I'm digging it. Haven't really had a chance to talk to Misha, but I like his style. And my crowd always enjoys a good party," he said. "And this is a pretty good one. Osric will make partner by the time he's thirty."

"He's only an intern," Jared said.

"Corporate culture, man. He gets it and that's just one more way he's proving his worth. And the fumigation was an excellent cover story."

Jared nodded as Mark Sheppard approached.

"Lads!" he said expansively. "Helluva party," he told Jared. 

"Not the first time I've helped organize my own surprise party," Jared said. "But it is the most surprised I've been at one."

"Ah, we just like to have a good time and wanted to make sure you guys know you've got friends," Mr. Sheppard said. "When I first got together with Sebastian, we went down a rabbit hole for six months and were almost too embarrassed to call people when we finally climbed out."

"Where is Sebastian?" Jensen asked.

"Opening night for a photography exhibit," Mr. Sheppard explained. Inclining his head slightly in Jared's direction, he continued, "My promised sub, Sebastian, runs a gallery and while he's amazing, he can't actually be in two places at one." Mr. Sheppard was as earnest as three beers could make him, looking like he was about to enumerate various spells, enchantments and experiments he had done to try to make his sub bilocate.

Instead, he pulled out his phone. "In fact, I'd better be going; I wanted to be at the gallery for at least some of it. You see Osric anywhere? He's my designated."

Jared looked around. "He's over there, with Misha. Collins. They have a clipboard," Jared noted with some alarm.

"Well, hopefully they've checked off everything important," Mr. Sheppard said, taking off to find his driver, calling, "To the gallery, James, and don't spare the horses!"

"Suddenly I feel bad for the artists and gallery patrons," Jared said.

"Don't," Jensen said. "He's psyching himself up to be as theatrical as Sebastian is. He'll be a big hit; he always is."

Jared looked around. Most of the residents had drifted off. Emily was supervising leftover storage and Ms. Griffin was talking to the caterers. Ms. Cortese and Ms. Harris seemed to be exchanging phone information; Jared was glad, since Ms. Cortese had just moved from Idaho and had hardly any chances to make friends from outside Atlanta Pines. 

Misha wandered up to Jared and Jensen.

"Have I totally embarrassed you?" he asked cheerfully.

"Not at all," Jensen said just as Jared said, "A bit."

"Ah, well, it's all in good fun and camaraderie," Jared added.

"We just don't want...." Misha started to explain.

"Yeah, I get it," Jared interrupted. "Mr. Sheppard was pretty eloquent about it just now."

"Okay, well, you know I sort of organized it, along with a bunch of other people, and I probably should stay to the bitter end, but Osric asked me if I'd like to go with him and Mr. Sheppard to the gallery, and...."

"Go forth," Jared instructed. "We're all perfectly capable of winding this down."

Misha beamed. "You're a good friend, Jared Padalecki."

"As are you, Misha Collins."

"And it was good to meet you," Misha said to Jensen. "Hopefully, before too long, we can interact more meaningfully."

"Back atchya," Jensen said. "Looking forward to it. And it really is a great party and a lovely, if unusual, idea."

Misha went off to join Osric and Mr. Sheppard in a fancy black car.

"I'm glad Misha's joining them to go to the gallery," Jensen said thoughtfully.

"You don't think he's being rude?" While Jensen seemed to understand Misha's wavelength, Jared was eager for his dom and his best friend to get off on the right foot.

Jensen shrugged. "Maybe just a little, but there are more important things. Misha and Osric probably...have a lot to talk about," he said.

Jared's jaw literally dropped. "You mean Osric is...."

Jensen just grinned in response. "Love is in the air, hadn't you noticed? Or at least its potential."

Jared looked around. He had Jensen, sure, but Mr. Gold and Harry Alexander were in deep conversation. Ms. Griffin was swaying to a Barry White number with her pledged sub. Emily and Ms. Cortese were chatting over a vat of macaroni salad, but Jared was pretty sure they were both too professional to let that go any further. Two of Jensen's lawyer colleagues were chatting with Samantha Smith, the nursing supervisor. 

"Maybe it's not all love," Jensen conceded as he, too, looked around. "But it is friendship."

"That's love, too," Jared pointed out and Jensen gave him a quick hug.

"Then love actually is all around."

"Thank you, Hugh Grant," Jared said, but he hugged Jensen tight. He had his dom, his friends, his job and the dark, sacred night.


End file.
